Indira Varma (Ellaria Sand): Filming violence on Game of Thrones is “boring”

Indira Varma (Ellaria Sand) is one of the less talked-about members of the Game of Thrones cast, but she’s no stranger to standing around elaborate sets in period garb, having been an important player on HBO’s Rome years before getting cast on Game of Thrones.

But it ends up that standing around in period garb isn’t all it’s cracked to be. And that goes double for standing around in period garb while the crew members set the stage for some GoT-style violence. What’s it like witnessing events like the head-crushing of Oberyn Martell? “It’s boring!” Varma said at a Broadcasting Press Guild lunch.

"It takes forever because they have to do so much coverage so they can edit it and add sound effects and make it even more disgusting."

Yawn.

Varma’s complaints check out, though. For example, Season 6’s Battle of the Bastards lasted for all of 30 minutes onscreen, a long time for television, but the crew was filming the sequence for a straight month. It’s probably difficult to overestimate how many times they had to calm the horses, reorient the extras, practice the choreography, and so forth. The end result is a brutal ballet of organized chaos, but if you’re standing on the sidelines waiting for your cue, the process can probably get very dull.

Varma didn’t touch on what, if anything, Ellaria Sand will get up to in Season 7. The plot down in Dorne has long since gone off-book, so it’s hard to predict what the future has in store for her. Last we saw her, she’d replaced Doran Martell as the ruler of Dorne and was striking an alliance with Olenna Tyrell.

She admitted to something else, though. Although she’s part of the Game of Thrones cast, Varma’s doesn’t actually watch the show.

"I don’t have Sky! I am less interested in the end result, it’s in the doing. I will watch it at some point but I need a bit of distance…it’s embarrassing!"

We’ll bring you more on what the women of Dorne are doing as it comes in.